


Venom and Vitriol

by poisonedapple



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Betrayal, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 22:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14247405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedapple/pseuds/poisonedapple
Summary: Mollymauk convinces the Mighty Nein to leave Beau behind for dead (or, while no better: prison with promise of a death sentence) when they find themselves in a fight that is well out of their league.Or:  Mollymauk plays a game and plays himself.





	Venom and Vitriol

**Author's Note:**

> Tal said a couple episodes back during Talks Machina that if they had to betray someone in M9, Molly would betray Beau. That he thought he could convince the rest easily to betray her if needed.
> 
> Sure, I said. Alright.
> 
> So here you go.
> 
> Written after watching episode 13 but takes place during a vague moment in the future and has no direct relevance to recent episodes. I'll put the kids at a level 5 for this fic.

 

Sometimes Mollymauk liked to play a game.  A little private game.  Some might call it 'Truth or Dare,' but Molly just called it how to have a good time when society deemed all the acts of having a legitimate good time were inappropriate for the time and place.

 

Sometimes he'd dare himself to try and drag out as many curled lips from bigots as he possibly could in an hour (his best record so far was six - he might have done better if Gustav hadn't dragged him out by his tail before he got himself into true trouble).  Other times he'll dare himself to test the limits of how outrageously he could lie before people cotton oned - he liked to stop just before the threshold.  Of course there were times where the dare was harmless, like making Yasha laugh without opening his mouth.  Those could be just as fun and often harder to do.

 

It's the truths that were the interesting ones though, when played right.  Those he liked to mull over during monotonous travel on the road, an activity that had not gone away with his transition from The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities and traveling with a party of just as much curiosities themselves, The Mighty Nein.  Truths like:  What wouldn't he try at least once? (Answer: not much but he'd gone through quite a list before he'd come to the conclusion), What would he do with 1,000 gold if ever he came into that amount of money all at once? (He'd asked that one before joining up with The Mighty Nein. His answer had been his truth; Molly was pleased with that), Who would he fuck, among the people he was travelling with? (During his carnie days, it'd change by the day between Mona, Bo, Desmond, and Ornna.  Nowadays it was between Fjord or Jester - it would depend on if he felt like bedding a virgin or with someone with more experience). 

 

If he wanted to raise the stakes on where his feelings truly lay with his traveling companions, however, all he had to ask himself was: Who among them would he betray?

 

When he'd been with the carnival, he'd come down to Desmond.  It wasn't anything personal - it was just that if there was dead weight that needed to be cut, Desmond would be Molly's first choice to betray.  In part it was because he was human.  It was just the cut and dry of it, though certainly there were other matters involved.  Mollymauk wasn't too proud a man to admit he'd been wrong - that he'd should have named Kylrie after recent revelations.

 

Now, though, it was interesting.  Now he was travelling with two full-blooded humans and his choice once more narrowed between the two of them because no one else had earned too much of his ire - even Nott.  Caleb was a shifty one and though he tried to hide it, he did not do it well.  Beau was just as shifty and didn't bother trying to hide it, cocky and impudent and acerbic and undeserving of such an attitude.  They were both useful in their own ways, but Caleb was more entertaining.  Beau was simply nettling and unpleasant.

 

He would betray her in a heartbeat and it'd be easy to do.  Unlike the rest, she had few lasting ties to the group.

 

She would be easy to cut away, if it came to it.

 

That's what he'd thought anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Fjord's face was drawn as he picked up Jester's limp body.   All he could do was scoop her up and run - run away from the Crown's Guard that was after them - now that they were out of healing potions.  Nott was dragging Caleb away by his hand, Caleb stumbling after only just being roused after having the last healing potion crammed down his throat.  Beau was the furthest from them, unconscious and bleeding with a Crown's Guard _still_ kicking her body as though not satisfied with her present state, a dark look on his face.

 

"YASHA!" Molly yelled, voice cracking as he looked wildly for his friend and found her easily, backing up toward him as she swung her great sword and killed the Crown's Guard she'd been in combat with.  She turned her head to him and he screamed, "Fall back!  We have to run!"  

 

"What about Beau?" Fjord yelled, even as he kept running with Jester in his arms without looking back.

 

"We don't have time!" Molly answered, scrambling after Fjord.  Nott and Caleb followed without objection, faces haggard and grave.

 

The Crown's Guard yelled after them and Molly couldn't hear what they were saying but he felt his heart dash against his chest when their voices get louder and louder and crossbow bolts got closer and closer to meeting their mark.

 

"Yasha!" He yelled again when she didn't surge past him.  He looked back for her.  She was just behind him, on his heels.  What his eyes landed and froze on, though, was Beau.  There was no time to feel relief or anything to see her eyes open and looking back at them, running away without her, as she tried to scramble to her hands and knees and crawl after them helplessly.

 

Her eyes were wide as the Crown's Guard brought his boot down on the top of her head again.

 

"Molly!" Yasha yelled warningly, somehow now just ahead of him.

 

He turned away from Beau's forsaken eyes and ran.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"Ever look back?" Molly had asked Yasha once.  He'd been teasing her mostly.  "When you run off on one of you secret excursions?"

 

"No," she answered seriously. "Never."

 

"Oh?"  Molly said, with some surprise at her vehemence.  "Why, pray tell?"

 

She looked at him for a long moment.  "Never look back, when you're running away.  Or even walking.  If you look back, you have to turn back - whether it is an enemy or friend behind you.  Or you'll regret it."

 

Molly cocked his head and stared at her with interest.  "You've experience, then?"

 

Yasha snorted and shook her head with a far away look and never answered.  An hour later, Yasha was gone.

 

It would have done Mollymauk some good to have heeded Yasha's advice.  If only he'd remembered in time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Jester took her time coming to, still bleed from the stab wounds that had downed her in the first place.  There hadn't been much they could do to help with that but wait for her to wake up on her own.  They didn't even have a med kit on hand, to help her along.  Fjord cradled her body, so she didn't lay on the floor of the sewer.  Caleb and Nott were keeping an eye out for rats and Crown's Guard out alike.  Yasha was too, but Molly could feel her eyes on him from where he'd fallen into a heap on the ground, breathing heavily.

 

"Fjord?" Jester said with a small voice.  "What happened?"

 

"You got hurt pretty bad, Jester.  We were all getting hurt pretty bad - we had to run," Fjord told her gently.  Everyone ushered over, to see her wake up properly.  "Jester, you're still hurt pretty badly.  We were scared you weren't going to... Anyway, Jester.  You've got to heal yourself, alright?"

 

"Yeah, it hurts pretty bad," Jester huffed as she wriggled in Fjord's arms and sat up.  "Everybody alright?"

 

No one answered and Jester looked them all over.

 

"Where's Beau?" Jester asked looking around wildly, sensing the melancholy in the air.  "BEAU!"

 

Fjord grabbed her by her shoulder. "Shh! Jester, quiet!  We aren't in the safest spot right now."

 

"Where's Beau?" Jester whisper-screamed loudly. "Beau, where are you?"

 

"Jester, heal yourself now.  We have to go."

 

"Go? Go where? To Beau?  Is she hurt?" Jester asked, voice already breaking.  "She was really hurt before I was knocked out Fjord, I only have one spell left. I should use it on Beau.  Please Fjord."

 

"Jester," Nott cut in.  Fjord scowled at the goblin for interjecting.  Fjord wanted to soften a blow that there was no soft landing for.  "We had to leave her behind."

 

"No!" Jester screamed, struggling in earnest in Fjord's arms.  She was still weak from blood-loss but Fjord had a hard time keeping a good grip on her.  "No, we've got to go back! We can't leave her!"

 

Fjord tried to calm her down, but Caleb interjected this time with, "It was too late, Jester.  There was nothing we could do.  We were in over our heads.  We need you strong now, so we can keep going."

 

Jester shook her head in hopeless protest.  "Beau," she whimpered and broke into wretched sobs.

 

Molly stepped forward and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.  This would have to be the first time she'd ever lost someone like this, poor girl.  "Jester," he beseeched her urgently.  "You've got to pull yourself together or we'll all be joining her."

 

"Molly," Fjord said warningly, pulling Jester away from him.

 

Molly eyed Fjord as the other man glared at him, his fists balling up even as he held Jester.

 

"I just lost a good friend of mine. Just...," Fjord trailed off but Molly got the message - Fjord blamed him for leaving Beau behind.  Molly had underestimated how much Jester and Fjord had bonded with Beau.

 

"Jester," Molly continued despite Fjord's anger.  "Beau isn't dead.  She was awake when I last saw her."  Fjord looks surprised at the information -- Molly could hear a couple of the others also react to the information from behind him but he didn't know who and how.  "Heal yourself and if we get out of this sewer alive, we'll regroup and see if we can't go back and get her.  But we need you at your best."

 

Jester looked at him with a teary face. "Really?  She's alive?"

 

Molly nodded.

 

"Then we  _must_ get her back _now_!  Molly, who knows what they are doing to her!  I need to save my last spell of the day for _her_."

 

Molly shook his head, "Jester all of us are tapped out right now, not just you.  We can't do it, we all need rest."  Her bottom lip wobbled but she nodded.

 

As she wiped the tears from her face, she casted Cure Wounds on herself.  When she finished mopping her face, her eyes were puffy but her cheeks no longer tear-streaked and her wounds had mostly closed up. 

 

"Let's go," she said with renewed energy.

 

"You looked back." Yasha whispered to him as they sloshed out of the sewers.  He didn't answer her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Molly woke from an already restless sleep to Jester jumping on top of him.

 

"Molly!  Time to wake up and break Beau out of the slammer!"  Jester said with considerable zeal.  Opening his eyes, Molly finds that Jester's merriment is more put-upon than genuine but an improvement to yesterday.

 

Jester goes around waking everyone like that and she corralled them all into Caleb and Nott's room.  They all looked like it'd been a difficult rest, but restful enough to replenish spells and energy at least.

 

"We're all agreed then?  We're going to... bust Beau out?"  Molly said with some apprehension, looking mostly at Caleb and Nott.  He'd mostly said what he'd said to Jester to get them out of the sewer.  He hadn't expected the rest to be willing to go along with it, mostly because it felt like a hopeless endeavor.

 

The two appeared to have a silent conversation with each other - though it was likely a lot less silent than it looked like to Molly.

 

"If we can come up with a plan that won't lead to us joining her," Caleb said after a while.  "Ja."

 

That surprised Molly more than he was willing to admit - he'd really thought that both Caleb and Nott would never go for it.  Caleb seemed to sense Molly's surprise.

 

"If this is going to be a long term arrangement, and I would like it to be, then I would like it if the same courtesy would, ah, be extended to the rest of us."  And by 'us,' Molly supposed Caleb meant himself and Nott.

 

Nott nodded reluctantly along with Caleb's words.

 

"She's grumpy, but no one deserves what the Crown's Guard prisons do to their prisoners," Nott admitted. "Trust me."

 

Molly clapped his hands together, "Guess we're breaking into prison then!"

 

Jester hooted in joy and Yasha stared at him with her mis-matched eyes.  Fjord sat forward and said, "All right then, we're agreed."

 

Molly couldn't help but feel that if Beau were there she'd be saying that this whole plan was insane, saying all the things that Molly would never actually verbalize himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"Jester!"  Beau gasped in surprise.  "You're alright!"

 

"Of course I am!  It's you we've been worried about!"  Jester squealed as she barreled into Beau, breaking Molly and Yasha's hold on her and squeezed her tight even as Beau seized in pain.  Jester let loose not one but two healing spells into Beau which she seemed appreciate, groans of pain morphing into a sigh of relief.  Jester had been part of the distraction team, while Molly had been part of the recovery team.  He, Yasha, and Nott had found Beau chained up like an animal in her cell and muzzled for good measure.  Molly wasn't sure if she'd been biting guards or spitting on them to earn that particular treatment.  Either way, she'd been in very bad shape - she'd been in need of a good deal of healing because they'd had no healing potions to give her.

 

"Well last I saw you, you weren't looking too great yourself," Beau said with a chuckle, patting Jester awkwardly on the head as Jester finally pulled back beaming.

 

"Oh, Beau, I missed you so much."

 

Beau grimaced.  Even with two healing spells, her face was still fairly bruised and she had a fat lip.  At least her broken bones were mended now - they'd been a hindrance in their escape.  She'd need special attention for the lobes of one of her ears later - her piercing had been ripped out.

 

"We don't have much time," Fjord said. "We've got to keep going."  He looked at Beau and then to Yasha. "You carry her."

 

"What? No, I can -," Beau said even as Yasha scooped her up.

 

"Free of charge," Yasha said dryly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Beau groaned as their wagon bounced on the road.  They'd made it to the inn to get their stuff, but there was no way they could stay any longer.  It'd been quite the job of it, smuggling out - just as hard as busting into prison - but they'd done it.  They were three hours away now, night was falling but they were pressing on.

 

Molly was doing his best to avoid Beau without being too obvious about it, driving the horses for now.  Jester joined him, hands bloody from stitching Beau's earlobe back together.  A little more healing from Jester and Beau's ears would be more or less better, but Jester was out of spells for now so it'd have to wait until morning.  Molly offered her his water skin wordlessly and she accepted and took a drink before she washed her hands with it.

 

She fell upon his shoulder, giggling giddily, hands still wet.  "We did it, Molly.  I knew you and Beau didn't hate each other despite how much you act like you do."

 

Molly didn't answer and clucked encouragingly at horses to speed up.

 

"I can take over for a bit," Yasha said, opening the flap separating the driver's seat from the rest of the wagon.  Molly looked back and over Yasha's shoulder he could see Fjord sitting by Beau who was stretched out on the floor, the two speaking in soft tones and laughing quietly.

 

"Sure," Molly agreed despite himself.

 

He settled quietly beside Nott and Caleb and polished his swords.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Molly was alone on watch.  He was taking care to actually keep watch lately.  After the bandits and now especially with the Crown's Guard likely trying to hunt them down it seemed the best idea.

 

"Hey," Beau greeted as she jumped out from the back of the wagon.

 

Molly sat up and nodded to her.  It was their third night since they'd skipped town.  They'd all made Beau sit out on taking watch the past couple days, because some wounds couldn't heal without good-old-fashion time for healing.  She was mostly better now.

 

She plopped down next to him and sighed.  "Been a while since I've seen the sky," she said, crossing her arms behind her head as she laid back.  Molly didn't answer.

 

"You weren't planning on coming back for me were you?"

 

"Frankly - no," he said honestly.

 

The punch took him by surprise and he skidded quite distance away despite the fact he'd already been sitting when it'd come.  "Bastard."

 

Molly snorted and brushed himself off.  "Would you have planned on coming back?  For anyone of us?"

 

"Dunno."

 

Molly snorted, rolled his eyes.  Typical.

 

"Guess I have to now though."  Beau said with an inconsequential shrug.

 

He eyed her warily, rubbing sorely where she'd punched him.  "Going to try that again?  Because it won't go down well if you try."

 

"Nah," Beau said, waving her hand dismissively.  "But I'm not through with you yet.  There'll be retribution for this, just you wait."

 

"Oh boy.  I can hardly wait."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Retaliation came faster than he expected.  The Crown's Guard tracked them down and they had no choice but to flee, because what the Crown's Guard lack in skill they do not in numbers.  Apparently they took very great offensive to even one criminals being busted out.  Well that and to the Crown's Guard being so publicly humiliated by the stunts that Fjord, Jester, and Caleb had pulled while the rest had been retrieving Beau.

 

"We have to get out of here!"  Fjord yelled.

 

This time it was Molly that was just out of reach as the wagon started rolling away.  

 

"What about Molly?" Jester yelled

 

"Don't worry about him!" Beau answered.

 

Molly fumed.  He screamed inflammatory things in Infernal, with nothing else to do with himself.   One of the guards had blasted him with Blindness and the terrain so uneven that even as he tries stumbling in direction he thought the the wagon was he knew he'd never make it in time.

 

He shouted when he was grabbed suddenly and swung out with his sword wildly.

 

"Fuck, chill out, it's me!"  Beau snapped, before snatching him by the wrist again.  Reluctantly, Molly allowed her to drag him.  Things happened so fast, he could hardly tell what was going on and could only trust that Beau yanking him about was to his betterment much as he hated it.  Especially when Beau yanked him to a stop and he could hear the whisper of an arrow flying through the air and Beau snatching it and the snap of her breaking it before she yanked him again.

 

"Almost," she grunted.

 

" _You've almost made_ _it,_ "  Nott's voice rang in his ear, " _You can reply to this message!"_

 

Molly ran faster and faster still when he was close enough to make out Yasha scream with worry in her voice, "Molly!" 

 

He blinked as the blindness finally started to wear off.  He could see the wagon, 40 feet off but gaining speed.  He did not look back at their pursuers, just on the outstretched hands of Yasha and Nott from the cart, on Caleb leaning as far out as possible. 

 

" _Faster - if you guys get within 30 feet Caleb can cast his new spell on one of you.  It'll make you go faster!"_ Caleb leaned out further, trying to close every inch to get range on them. " _You can reply to this message!"_

 

He shoved Beau ahead of him.  She was faster.  If they could get in range, she could pull them both.  She ran and then she was a blur - she ran back for him and dragged him.  He did his best to carry his weight and then Yasha was yanking them both into wagon.

 

"Beau!" screamed Jester.  They both had collapsed on the floor, Molly gasping but Beau went rigid.

 

"It's nothing," said Caleb. "An after-effect of Haste, but she'll be fine in a couple seconds." 

 

Beau's body did go lax a few moments later, still breathing heavily, and then all Molly could really focus on was the the harshness of his breath as he panted, the sound of Beau's equally harsh breathing, and the sound of wagon bumping wildly as they fled.

 

Molly recovered first, took gulps of water that Yasha offered him, and choked on it as his lungs burned.  He watched as Beau regained herself and sputtered as the flask Nott had given her was very obviously not water.

 

Beau smirked at him, front of her shirt wet, and Molly scowled.  She'd saved him.  She'd come back for him.  And she knew it, which was the worst - she did it on purpose.  She was such a bitch.

 

He would never forgive her for this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The wagon rocked, traveling at a reasonable pace.

 

Yasha was taking a turn driving and watching the road.

 

Molly sighed, sprawled out on the floor of the wagon.  He was bored - no one had spoken for miles and he could only page through the same porn books before he couldn't take it any longer.

 

"Truth or Dare?"

 

"DARE!" Jester yelled, clapping her hands in joy.  Beau shrugged and nodded with Jester.

 

"I... do not like this game."

 

"If Caleb objects to it so do I."

 

"I think I'm going to go sit up with Yasha," said Fjord, jumping up.

 

Mollymauk smirked.

 

Sometimes, he liked to play little games.

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo. Hit that kudo button if I've earned it, and leave a comment if you really enjoyed it. Seems like such an inconsequential thing to ya'll, I'm sure, but my motivation to write more fic improves like. Dramatically if I know people are not just reading but /enjoying/ my work.
> 
> Either way, thank you! <33


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